Hacked crypto project Thala agrees to $300K bounty, recovers $25M

Decentralized finance (DeFi) project Thala Labs reportedly managed to negotiate the return of stolen millions with its hacker in less than six hours.

On November 16th, the platform confirmed that it had suffered a security breach resulting in the loss of $25.5 million worth of tokens.

According to the team, with the assistance of law enforcement and blockchain sleuths such as Seal 911, Ogle, and others, they identified the exploiter and negotiated a $300,000 bounty for the full recovery of the stolen assets. Thala assured users that no further action is required on their part, and their positions will be fully restored.

Ogle confirmed that the funds were recovered in under six hours.

"I'm glad the exploiter made the right choice so quickly," the investigator noted.

Meanwhile, after pausing all relevant smart contracts and freezing its token, the platform confirmed on Sunday that it is now back online. However, certain functionalities, such as farming – a method of earning yield on crypto assets – remain paused for security reasons.

"Users are unable to stake/unstake positions until all affected modules are patched and reaudited," the team stated, without providing a specific timeline for resumption. Staking refers to locking up tokens in a smart contract in exchange for rewards.

According to Thala, the hacker exploited "an isolated vulnerability" in the latest update to its farming contracts, enabling the withdrawal of tokens.

Thala’s native token, THL, dropped nearly 40% following the announcement of the exploit. Although it has since recovered most of its losses, it remains down by more than 20% over the past week.